’Tis the season for forest fires — again

Petroleum News

It’s fire season again in Alaska. As usual, the 800 mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez terminal is in the middle of more than one forest fire.

The pipeline, built to withstand much higher temperatures than those generated by a forest fire, has fared well again this year with only minor external damages, Mike Heatwole Petroleum News July 28.

Heatwole is corporate communications manager for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. which was established in 1970 to design, build, operate and maintain the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, commonly referred to as TAPS.

“We’ve had only minor external damage this year. As has happened in multiple years in the past, we’ll go back in after the fire season is done” to make further assessments and repair the damage. … We have a lot of people in the field and, as usual, are taking a lot of precautionary measures,” Heatwole said.

Alyeska does something called “brushing,” which means clearing brush and trees away from the pipeline so “there’s not a fuel source under the pipeline,” he said.

If a forest fire jumps the pipeline and is burning on both sides, the company will often go in and clear out more trees, he said.

“We work closely with the fire fighters, sometimes offering equipment, assistance,” Heatwole said.

Rhea DeBosh Rhea, information officer for the Joint Pipeline Office, told Petroleum News July 28 that it “takes an awful to get through all the material around the pipe.”

“When you look at the pipeline, you’re not really seeing pipe. … There is a protective coating on the outside and underneath that it is protected by a variety of different materials. … The pipe is very heat resistant, very strong. It would be extremely difficult to expose the pipe without some type of major catastrophe. The forest fires simply do not burn hot enough.”